The Five Orange Pips

My scion group, Doctor Watson’s Neglected Patients, will meet this Sunday to discuss The Five Orange Pips, which many people consider a classic of the Canon and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself listed it as his seventh favorite. Instead I consider it one of those stories best swept under the rug and I think Watson should consider it to be one of the adventures that goes in the minus column.

To refresh your memory, Sherlock Holmes and his friend Dr. John Watson are visited late one stormy night in September by Mr. John Openshaw, who lived with his uncle Elias in Sussex. The uncle had returned to England after living many years in the United States and had been a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

Several years previous, Uncle Elias had received a mysterious letter postmarked from India that contained nothing but five orange seeds. Uncle Elias exclaimed after receiving the letter: “K. K. K.! My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!” Some time later, he’s found dead in a shallow pool. A coroner’s jury ruled it suicide.

Just before his death, Elias Openshaw had willed his property to his brother, Joseph Openshaw and John’s father. About a year after Elias’ death, Joseph Openshaw also receives a letter, this time postmarked from Ireland, with five orange pips and the warning, “Put the papers on the sundial.” Father and son are puzzled what the papers might be, especially as Uncle Elias had burned most of his private papers before his death.

But John’s father pooh-poohs the sinister letter and soon is also found dead after apparently falling down a chalk pit. It is now almost three years later and John has two days previous received another installment of the orange pips with the same warning to put the papers on the sundial. His letter was postmarked London and he has come to Holmes for help. He also offers a scrap of paper that had survived Uncle Elias’ attempt to burn it. It says:

4th.	Hudson came. Same old platform.
7th.	Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and John Swain, of St. Augustine.
9th.	McCauley cleared.
10th.	John Swain cleared.
12th.	Visited Paramore. All well.

Holmes advises John Openshaw to return home immediately, put the scrap of paper on the sundial, with the box that had contained Uncle Elias’s papers, and the explanation that the scrap is all that remains. He further tells Openshaw:

“Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself in the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you go back?”
“By train from Waterloo.”
“It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so I trust that you may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too closely.”
“I am armed.”
“That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case.”
“I shall see you at Horsham, then?”
“No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek it.”
“Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news as to the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in every particular.”

But as Holmes prepares to leave the next morning, Watson reads that Openshaw died shortly after leaving Baker Street, having fallen into the Thames near Waterloo Station.

Now I haven’t mentioned the long conversation between Holmes and Watson wherein Holmes puts forth his conjectures: that Elias Openshaw had been a member of the Ku Klux Klan; that he had transgressed the rules of that organization and had fled to England; that the time and distance between the first letter and Elias’s death were in marked contrast to the relatively swift death of Joseph Openshaw; and that Holmes feared John Openshaw faced imminent death.

If I didn’t know that Holmes and Doyle believed slavery to be a cruel institution (The Adventure of the Yellow Face), I might wonder if Holmes didn’t have a hand in Openshaw’s death. He blithely tells Watson:

“I believe that the only chance young Openshaw has in the meantime is to do what I have told him. There is nothing more to be said or to be done to-night, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable ways of our fellowmen.”

And this comes after Holmes has already explained to Watson that as the postmark on the letter moves closer geographically, the time between the arrival of the letter and the death of the recipient grows shorter. And yet he allows young Openshaw to leave on his own.

Now in some situations, Holmes immediately acts to protect a client, like Sir Henry Baskerville, and in others he waits, like the The Dancing Men where Holmes patiently waits for each answering telegram from Hilton Cubitt, until it is too late.

To me, it seems unforgivable to allow Openshaw to leave by himself. And I am further puzzled by the progression of the postmarks. The first comes from India, and weeks later Elias Openshaw is dead. The second comes from Ireland, and five days later Josesph Openshaw is dead, while John Openshaw meets his death but two days later. Holmes says:

“There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man or men are is a sailing-ship. It looks as if they always sent their singular warning or token before them when starting upon their mission. You see how quickly the deed followed the sign when it came from Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry in a steamer they would have arrived almost as soon as their letter. But, as a matter of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that those seven weeks represented the difference between the mail-boat which brought the letter and the sailing vessel which brought the writer.”

This seems to indicate the murderer or murderers left India bound for England, found Uncle Elias, killed him, waited a year and left for Ireland, returned to England, killed Joseph Openshaw, waited two years and eight months and are now in London. All this undoubtedly adds to the suspense of the tale, but it certainly also makes the matter somewhat nonsensical.

Another aspect of this story reminds me of that definition of insanity: repeatedly doing the same actions but expecting different outcomes. Elias Openshaw is not given instructions, but father and son are both told to “Put the papers on the sundial.” It’s understandable that the murderers might think Uncle Elias’ relations would know of Elias’ secrets, but by the time they threaten the youngest Openshaw, you would expect the murderers would wonder whether they are effectively communicating their threat. Presumably then they killed John Openshaw and for two and three-quarters years grumbled about the intransigence of the Openshaw family and issued the exact same poorly worded threat.

Fortunately, this story has other reasons to recommend itself. The list of Watson’s unchronicled stories is impressive: “the adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the British bark Sophy Anderson, of the singular adventures of the Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the Camberwell poisoning case.” There is further mention of the Tankerville Club scandal.

And there is also this endearing admission by Holmes after a question by Watson:

“Why,” said I, glancing up at my companion, “that was surely the bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?”

“Except yourself I have none,” he answered. “I do not encourage visitors.”

We also find Watson’s wonderful description of the equinoctial gales: “the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney.” Most importantly, Holmes refers to the list Watson wrote of Holmes’ limits from A Study in Scarlet. His remarks in FIVE seems to soften his earlier remarks that it useless to stuff one’s brain-attic with useless information:

“I say now, as I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he can get it if he wants it.”

So in this instance, he references his American encyclopedia to refresh his memory about the K.K.K., giving lie to any suggestion that knowledge ever becomes useless.

Finally the story ends with Holmes unable to capture the murderers of the Openshaws. The bark Lone Star, which was a ship that visited Pondicherry, India, and Dundee, Ireland, on the relevant dates, and that has just left London for Savannah, Georgia, had three Americans on board—the captain and the two mates. Holmes has sent a letter by mail-boat to the American authorities to arrest the three, but the Lone Star sinks in the same equinoctial gales that moaned in the chimney at 221B Baker Street. Making this story another of those tales where Holmes neither prevents the death of client nor apprehends the guilty. Definitely one for the minus column.

PS: Doctor Watson’s Neglected Patients meets Sunday, Sept. 9, at Pint’s Pub in Denver at 12:30 p.m.

PPS: One amusing note—our society held a scavenger hunt in May where participants had to supply five orange pips, which are quite difficult to produce these days because most oranges are seedless.